


Madness

by Gaia_bing



Category: Avengers (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: ...or is it?, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Present Tense, Psychological Horror, Some pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-16 02:50:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16076813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gaia_bing/pseuds/Gaia_bing
Summary: A man wakes up, not where he'd been just a moment ago.





	Madness

**Author's Note:**

> New one-shot by me! Hope you like it! :D
> 
> Title (and most of the story) was inspired by this little diddy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnVzmpzd8Ps

The first thing that he sees is a light.

  
Appearing,

  
Disappearing,

  
Appearing,

  
Disappearing.

  
The first thing that he hears is a female voice say to someone or something:

  
_"...-the patient is finally responding. There was definitely retraction and dilation of the pupil when the light stimuli was allied. Let's see now if he responds to sound stimuli."_

  
A second voice comes by his other side, a male one this time around and with a curious tone, asks:

  
_"James? Mr. Barnes? Can you hear me?"_

  
That's when his vision decides to come into focus and just like the light that had passed beforehand, he blinks.

  
He sees a man standing there, slightly grinning as he exclaims: "Well, well, well, look who finally decided to rejoin the world of the living?"

  
This man, he's seen him somewhere before...

  
But for the life of him, he just can't remember where or when.

  
The first thing that he says is in a hoarse voice is: "Whe-where am I?"

  
The female voice from before responds in a calming manner: "Don't worry Mr. Barnes, you're safe here and in quite capable hands."

  
He tries to move to get a better look at his surroundings...

  
And finds out that he can't.

  
He looks down and that"s when he sees them...

 

The bed,

  
The jacket,

  
The straps,

  
The locks.

  
His arms are locked together and he cannot move from the bed he's been attached to.

  
He moves his head, the only thing on his body he can actually move,

  
And sees...

  
A white room.

  
-White pads on the wall,

  
-A white neon light,

  
-White tiles on the floor,

-White neons on the ceiling.

  
Everything and everyone around him (including himself), are all in white.

  
And that's when it hits him.

  
He...he wasn't in a white room just now...

  
He was in the middle of a jungle, fighting...

  
Fighting...

  
"Thanos! Thanos! I've gotta find him, he's going to destroy half of the universe! He's got the Stones! I've gotta...I've gotta..." he suddenly cries out.

  
"Oh great! Another one of _those_ people!" he hears the man scuff in annoyance and throw his hands in the air in frustration.

  
"Hey, come on now, don't say that in front of him when he's just woken up!" the woman admonishes him, shaker her head.

  
He doesn't understand...

 

 _What_ people?

  
He doesn't know what's going on, but he knows that he has to go...

  
He has to go find...

  
Find...

  
_**Steve**_!

  
He has to find Steve and help him defeat the bad guys, just like he'd always done.

  
He desperately yanks at his bindings, trying to get up and get out.

  
"Please, I've gotta find Steve and I've gotta help him! I've gotta go back to Wakanda and help...and help..." he pleads, desperately yanking on his bindings.

  
The woman in white puts a gentle hand on his shoulders, trying to calm the trashing man down. "Mr. Barnes? Is this Wakanda that you're talking about looks something like this?"

  
She pushes something in front of his eyes...

  
It's a book.

  
A picture book.

  
But the pictures inside that book aren't photos,

  
No, they're...

  
_Drawn_.

  
Everything is drawn.

  
The people inside the book are drawn.

  
The king of...

  
The king of Wakanda is somehow drawn.

  
He finishes trashing and looks at the female worker, blinking in confusion.

  
"Wh-what's going on?" he asks, completely confused.

  
"Mr. Barnes, I'm sorry to break it to you, but Wakanda is a fictional place that was invented in 1966 by the creators of a comic book, the very same one you're staring at right now. It doesn't exists. So again, I'm sorry to say, but you can't physically go back there." the woman explained.

  
He shakes his head, disbelieving what he's hearing.

  
"No, it's real, I was just there! I was fighting with..." he starts.

  
"-the Black Panther?" the male worker offers.

  
The man on the bed only nods.

  
The one in white crosses his arms, sighs a hushed: " _...and I thought the Spider-kid that was wailing for Tony Stark was a nut-case..._ " and looks up at the ceiling as he adds "Let me guess: along with a black guy that can fly and that doesn't really like people with metal arms, a chick that says she can manipulate people's minds and has a brother that can run really, *really* fast and a teenage tree that can only say three words over and over and over again, among many other people. Am I right or am I not?"

The man on the bed nods once more, not comprehending as to how this man knew all of his friends when he himself couldn't quite remember who this particular man was.

  
And speaking of metal arms...

  
Why in the world had he _two_ **flesh** ones just now?!

  
The male worker bends over him, his face coming close as he asks him point blank:

  
"You think you're the Winter Soldier, that you fell off a train back in the 40's and got programmed by something called Hydra and was turned into an assassin for over the next 70 years, don't you? And that you're best friends with Captain America right?"

The man on the bed once again nods.

  
Shaking his head, the male worker moves a bit and returns with...

  
"This is a DVD. I think that for your situation, just like all the ones that's been brought here this past week or so, this is obligatory viewing for you to see what's really going on here."

  
The man on the bed stares at the plastic cover and reads the title out loud:

  
" _Captain America... The Winter Soldier_?"

  
The man in white, who he finally sees that he's harboring a tag on his shirt that reads _"Brock"_ , nods and pops in the small disc inside a machine that he hadn't noticed before.

  
And before him, the man on the bed sees everything.

Everything that has happened to him in the past, or should he say, everything that he _believed_ has happened to him in the past, is playing before his very eyes.

  
It is played by people...

 

People that **_don't_** look like him...

  
That **_don't_** look like Steve...

  
That are people that he simply doesn't recognize.

  
He doesn't know how much time passes, but the female worker, whose own tag reads _"Maria"_ , takes over and being the good cop of the two, finally stops the cascades of images and sits on the bed near the man attached to it.

  
She looks down at the floor as she recalls:

  
"Listen, I was in the same kind of situation as you were not too long ago. I was placed inside a cell just like you and I was told the same kind of things that you've been said to just now. It was after I saw all these movies and these books and even those television series that I realized that what I thought had been reality, really was... _not_. It was then that they offered me this job as a way to help other people realize what I myself just realized."

  
She grabs a nearby pad and begins to read out loud:

  
"Your name is James Barnes. There isn't any Bucky-related thing inside what you were called. You're thirty-six years old and _not_ a hundred and one, like you probably think you are. You're a normal person with a normal life. You were brought here, along with a couple of other people that claimed the same kind of things as you, after a viewing of another movie called _"Infinity Wars."_ There is no Thanos, there is no Infinity Stones, those people that disappeared after that snap are going to come back next year in the sequel, don't worry. All of those things that you think you saw and all the things that you think that you went through didn't really happen. It was all played on a screen, nothing more, nothing less.

  
This is the real world and in the real world...

  
There's no such things as superheroes."

  
The man on the bed blinks, once, twice and turns his head.

  
"I'm...I'm _not_ the Winter Soldier? I'm a thirty-six year old normal guy named James Barnes?"

  
Maria slowly shakes her head, a sympathetic smile rising upon her lips.

  
"And Wakanda is a...is a fictional place?"

  
"I'm afraid so." Maria replies.

  
"And Steve isn't...Steve isn't real? He's just a character in a comic book and a bunch of movies? I can never tell him that I...that I..." the man asks, the reality of it all finally hitting him like a tidal wave, tears welling up in his miserable-looking eyes.  
Maria pats the man on one of his attached shoulders.

  
"I know it's hard to accept because the truth can hurt like crazy, but the sooner you comprehend what's going on, the sooner you'll be able to accept reality and start to heal from what has happened to you." she says, before getting off the bed and exiting the room, along with the other worker.

  
James can hear Brock whispering to his comrade: _"...wait 'til he learns who the president is... **then** he's going to lose his shit..._ "

  
But he doesn't ask what the other man means by that...

  
That's because he doesn't care.

 

James Barnes is in a loony-bin because of a movie that he saw.

  
What he thought to be his reality clearly _isn't_.

  
There is no Thanos nor Infinity-related things.

  
There is no Wakanda..

  
There is no Winter Soldier.

  
There is no...

  
There is no Steve Rogers.

  
And right there, in the middle of cries of:

  
... _"I am a God! Get me the hell out of here and back to my dear brother!"_

  
... _"For the last time, I am the Sorcerer Supreme!"_

  
... _"I am Groot!"_

  
The real-James Barnes leans his real-head against the real-wall of his real-cell...

  
And has never felt more hopeless and alone in his entire life.

  
**************

  
And somewhere, inside a maybe-fictional jungle, a maybe-fictional Steve Rogers leans his head against the bark of a maybe-fictional tree...

  
And has never felt more hopeless and alone in his entire life.


End file.
